After a late-night pizza and beer meeting between Sen. Ted Cruz (R- Texas) and some House Republicans helped kill the vote on last week’s border bill, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele appeared on MSNBC to give House GOP leadership some advice.
“For John Boehner, whenever any of his members says, ‘Hey, I’m about to have pizza and beer with Ted Cruz,’ he should be concerned,” Steele joked. “Really look at the calendar and see if there’s a vote coming up.”
Steele said the Republican party is dealing with a bit of “national embarrassment” on the border bill and that the “narrative right now sucks, quite frankly.”
“We have to take stock about how we are going to be a governing majority if we cannot govern something like this right now. I think there are a lot of conservatives around the country that are concerned about it. Republicans at-large are concerned about it. This new leadership team has got to show they’ve got the metal to lead here and this is not a good way to start,” he said.
With former Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s primary loss and decision to step down early, the border vote was the first under the new Republican leadership team of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
Watch the clip here:
